Publications

In recent decades, diversity training has become a frequently used tool in efforts to reduce bias and increase inclusion in organizations. However, the effectiveness of diversity training has been called into question. The content and methods of…

Many empirical studies of labor market questions rely on estimating relatively simple predictive models using small, carefully constructed longitudinal survey datasets based on hand-engineered features. Large Language Models (LLMs), trained on…

Many scarce public resources are allocated at below-market-clearing prices and sometimes for free. Such “nonmarket” mechanisms sacrifice some surplus, yet they can potentially improve equity. We develop a model of mechanism design with…

International trade and natural resource exploitation interact in multiple ways. This paper first presents a dynamic game in which the South (S) exploits (e.g., deforests) in order to export (e.g., lumber and agricultural products). Because of…

Fixed effects (FE) have emerged as a ubiquitous and powerful tool for eliminating unwanted variation in observational accounting studies. Unwanted variation is plentiful in accounting research because we often use rich data to test precise…

A higher U.S. government debt/output ratio does not forecast higher surpluses or lower returns on Treasurys in the future. Neither future cash flows nor discount rates account for the variation in the current debt/output ratio. The market…

Traditional dynamic programming requires a mathematical model of the transition function for the state vector. Leveraging reinforcement learning techniques, we develop a framework to solve dynamic optimization problems that does not require…

This paper compares the affordability of owner-occupied housing across US cities. We apply a new method for imputing the rental value of owner-occupied housing developed in Diamond and Diamond (2024) that accounts for unobserved house quality. On…

In November 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX airplane crashed off the coast of Indonesia, killing all 189 passengers and crew members. Four months later, a second 737 MAX flying from Ethiopia to Nairobi crashed, killing 157 individuals. In this Closer Look…

State and federal governments invest millions of dollars in providing accurate and relevant information on expected outcomes to students pursuing higher education, but whether such information targets what students value about college is unclear…

We formulate the problem of constructing multiple simultaneously valid confidence intervals (CIs) as estimating a high probability upper bound on the maximum error for a class/set of estimate-estimand-error tuples, and refer to this as the error…

Democratic values are eroding just as citizens perceive increasing corruption, with numerous cases implicating the highest-level politicians. Could perceived increases in apex corruption be weakening democracy? We first present event study…

We explore the evolution of financial innovation using US finance patents. Patented financial innovations are substantial and increasingly economically important. Their subject matter has changed, consistent with the industry’s shift toward…

Dehumanization of others has been attributed to institutional processes that spread dehumanizing norms and narratives, as well as to individuals’ denial of mind to others. We propose that blatant dehumanization also arises when people actively…

In this study, we examine complementarities in usage across a set of related software products from a multi-product firm. We employ a novel experimental approach to causally estimate complementarities, leveraging rich usage data and advertising…

In this Closer Look, we consider whether ESG is a luxury good — a good whose high price tag stimulates demand. During times of economic prosperity, shareholders expressed willingness to sacrifice personal financial benefit to see environmental…

Venture capitalists’ unique approach to investment and innovation has played a pivotal role in launching one-fifth of the largest U.S. public companies. And three-quarters of the largest U.S. companies founded in the past 50 years would not have…

The Massachusetts Firearms Records Bureau recently published administrative data covering the universe of legal firearm transactions in the state. We use these data to validate state-level background checks as a proxy for firearm transactions and…

Politicians invest heavily in social media to amplify narratives about their nations, but the effectiveness of such approaches remains unclear. Analyzing 758,222 posts from US and UK politicians on X (formerly Twitter), we found that right-wing…

Determining emergency department (ED) nurse staffing decisions to balance quality of service and staffing costs can be extremely challenging, especially when there is a high level of uncertainty in patient demand. Increasing data availability and…